


Jungle Canyon Rope Bridge

by levendis



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Emotional Constipation, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, cuddlecore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 14:32:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10878786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: Things don’t usually go wrong; sometimes they do.





	Jungle Canyon Rope Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> for Zabbers, who requested: a pre-s10 fic in which Twelve is really struggling with having to stay put and Nardole attempts to offer comfort (while also having to be the enforcer).

Nardole’s got a limp now. A screw loose in there somewhere, or a whatsit on the fritz. Just a minor inconvenience, not like anything hurts, only his left leg doesn’t always work 100% correctly. And if he tries, he can almost half-believe it’s a regular injury, a sprain or a tear or a worn-down joint. Which is helpful, on those evenings where he sits perfectly still so as not to have to listen to the motors whirring, due to running away in fear of himself not being a viable option.

The Doctor doesn’t notice it, Nardole’s new limp. Partially because the Doctor rarely notices anything they haven’t already decided to care about, partially because Nardole does his best to hide it. Since if the Doctor _did_ notice and did decide to care, they’d be determined to fix whatever had gone wrong, and for a variety of reasons Nardole isn’t particularly inclined to grant that level of intimacy. So: a limp. (And with the use of a brace lifted from Boots and several feet of heavy-duty duct tape, the effects can be mostly minimized.)

 

Makes the staircase down to the vault a bit tricky, but that’s fine, since the Doctor only joins the nightly check when something’s gone wrong. Thanks to Nardole, things hardly ever go wrong. Well, mostly don’t. Or - anyway. When it does rarely - semi-rarely, hardly at all - go wrong, like tonight, Nardole just stays behind the Doctor. He’s always been slow-moving, anyway. He eases his way down the steps and watches the soft blue glow of the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver snuff out around the bend of the hallway.

“It’s alright,” the Doctor yells. “One of the locks wasn’t set right. All good now.”

Nardole rounds the corner and then stands very still. “I always triple-check,” he says.

The Doctor tries frowning, and then smiling, then runs their hand through their hair, the light from the sonic bouncing around them. Kind of a jittery halo effect. “I don’t. I mean to - I don’t, always.”

“The lock would have been set correctly,” Nardole says, feeling what might be another screw coming close, something off inside him. “From when I’d triple-checked it was still set correctly. Unless it was unlocked, and then reset.”

Which means, which means. Oh. Obviously.

“I’d tell you off but we both know it’d be pointless. So. Just. Be more careful next time,” Nardole says.

“Can’t be a next time of something that didn’t happen in the first place. If I’m following your line of attack properly.”

“You’re a terrible liar, you know,” Nardole says. He clenches his fists and listens to the motors whirring.

The torchlight of the sonic clicks off, just the faint ambient light of the vault door to illuminate the Doctor’s face screwing up, and then blanking, and then the greater whole of the Doctor flouncing past Nardole.

Left alone in the dark, not a huge change of pace.

 

* * *

Objectively speaking, hanging around guarding a monster is better than running around fighting monsters. Less stressful, for sure. The danger is known and quantifiable. There is a routine, and a softer sort of existence, exploring the details of a single mode of being rather than jumping on and on and on to the next one. A familiarity. Dusting the knick-nacks and sorting the papers and making the tea. It’s a fair copy of domesticity, and Nardole appreciates the domestic life.

But the Doctor is antsy now. Tapping toes, clicking click-top pens, tearing pieces of paper into small squares. Standing on the stage in the lecture hall saying _we explore because we have to, because it’s in our nature. Sometimes this means landing on the moon, sometimes this means colonialism and genocide. Flip a coin._ A sad, combative look in his eyes. Time is the enemy, and time moves slowly. Inexorably.

Nardole makes the tea and organizes the logistics of a professor’s professional life and triple-checks the locks. The Doctor comes home late and disheveled and does not meet his eyes. It works, technically.

 

“There’s plenty of adventure to be had right here,” Nardole says on one of those nights the Doctor can’t stop staring at the TARDIS.

“Obviously.” Their foot tapping rhythmically on the floor.

“Beyond just going for a walk or whatever it is that you actually do when you say you’re going for a walk.”

“This isn’t my first rodeo, Nardole.” The look on their face says that the conversation is over, and doesn’t betray much else.

 

* * *

Things don’t usually go wrong; sometimes they do. The Doctor comes home from their nightly walk, or whatever it is they really do, and proceeds to aggressively putter around the office. Nardole sits up in bed, in his now somewhat-more-than-a-closet, and listens to the muffled bangs and knocking around, the heavy pacing, the muttered invectives. The Doctor does this, sometimes.

After a crash that’s a touch too dramatic and a silence that goes on a minute too long, Nardole scrapes himself out of his blanket cocoon and shuffles hesitantly out. Wonky leg going almost full-useless under him. Things in the office are in a standard disarray; light’s on in the kitchenette, though. He pushes through the dread and drags himself forward, the clunky mechanical whine of whatever malfunction loud in the quiet.

The Doctor’s standing by the sink, staring blankly down at the bits of at least three broken mugs on the floor, absentmindedly cradling their right hand, which is leaking a decent amount of blood.

“Just wanted a cuppa,” they say, matter-of-fact.

The light’s too bright and it’s far too late at night/too early in the morning, and the sight of blood makes him woozy, and everything’s gone tilted. Everything’s been gone tilted. This is exhausting.

“Let’s get you fixed up,” he says, and slings an arm over the Doctor’s shoulder.

“It’s nothing,” the Doctor says. But 3 AM after having been injured in the pursuit of a creature comfort is one of those liminal spaces, apparently, where the Doctor’s grip on their Doctor-ness slips and the petulant sarcasm is ditched in favor of a decent impression of fear. Little boy lost, clenching a fist around the gash in their palm.

Nardole sets them down at the tiny table and searches through the cupboards for antiseptic and plasters, or, failing that, vodka and some paper towels. He comes back with an individually-wrapped lemon-scented freshen-up wipette and an old t-shirt that’d been, for whatever reason, next to the Weetabix.

“Sorry, uh,” he says.

The Doctor is flexing their hand, skin visibly knitting back together under the blood.

Nardole can’t fit into the table-nook, so just stands awkwardly behind the Doctor, wringing the t-shirt and moist towelette in his hands. Then he throws them on the table with a well-defined and deliberate sigh, and turns to leave.

“Please,” the Doctor says. There’s a crack in their voice that stops Nardole in his tracks. “I can’t - I can’t _do_ this.”

“I know,” Nardole says. “But you have to anyway.”

“Dunno how.”

Against his better judgment, Nardole squeezes the Doctor’s shoulder. He’d meant to be cool and aloof here, is the thing. He’s not prepared for how the Doctor leans into the touch.

It’s a mistake, but Nardole lets his hand linger, lets the gesture veer dangerously close to a caress, and says “C'mon.”

 

Also mistakes: stripping the outer few layers off a suddenly very pliant Doctor, pouring them into his own custom-built blanket pile on his personal and private bed in his formerly-a-closet, noticing how this all sort of works for him in the part of his head he’s usually busy reminding to be silent. Even if, in his daydreams, the Doctor isn’t generally having something comparable to a panic attack. And Nardole isn’t surreptitiously shaking a stray screw out from his pajama trousers, and he’s not awkwardly climbing into bed next to a barrier of blankets and pillows, only the topmost edge of the Doctor’s hair visible.

“Okay?” he asks quietly, grabbing the nearest soft thing - a kind of cartoon-cat furry pillow thing - and clutching it to his chest.

“No,” the Doctor says.

Bit a conversation-ender, that. Nardole rests his back against the blanket wall and screws his eyes shut. The Doctor will inevitably snore intensely for 30 minutes and then leave, and Nardole will wake up alone. It’s better than nothing, though, surely. A little kindness goes a long way. Nardole reaches over and pats the Doctor on the head, or hair, and digs his way into a new sleep-nest, carefully putting his subroutines on standby one by one.


End file.
